


Candlestick

by gayandreadytopartay



Category: RWBY
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-15
Updated: 2020-07-15
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:48:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25277980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gayandreadytopartay/pseuds/gayandreadytopartay
Summary: Life is like a candlestick. As the candle burns, it dies. Just like a person's life.
Relationships: Pyrrha Nikos & Everyone
Kudos: 6





	Candlestick

**Author's Note:**

> I don't own RWBY. All rights go to Monty Oum and Rooster Teeth.

Life is like a candlestick.

A strange metaphor, Pyrrha knows, but it's what her father told her when she had announced that she wanted to be a huntress. It's just something she's never _understood_. Maybe she would never understand it.

But her father explained it to her every single year on her birthday until he tragically died. Life starts with a flash and forms a flame that depicts a lifeform, but the flame would either die out or continue to melt the wax.

"Wax," Pyrrha's father told her one night while the weather was particularly awful. "is like the years people go through. So if the candlestick has little wax, it will die out quickly. But the ones with a lot of wax live to tell many tales. And _you_ , sweetheart, are the wick."

"Why the wick?" Young Pyrrha said with a curious tilt of her head. She knew that she was old enough to understand by now, but she had never actually heard this part about the wick. Perhaps dad was saving it for last.

Her father chuckled. "Because as the wick burns, it melts the wax. Because as _you live_ , years go by,"

Pyrrha knows that huntsmen and huntresses didn't live, most of the time, a long time. It's inevitable for them that their time would come sooner rather than later. Pyrrha, before it happens, wants to meet the perfect boy and start a family. Along the way, she would retire and her candlestick that holds her life would melt away until the flame dies. It would be the perfect life.

And Jaune Arc… she didn't think she'd fall for someone so quickly. Maybe it was his looks that drew him in, she first thought before their partnership. Then she realized that she liked Jaune because he didn't have high expectations and he wasn't a total douche like Cardin and his cronies.

Jaune and Pyrrha Arc. Jaune and Pyrrha Nikos. Jaune and Pyrrha Nikos-Arc.

She had sized him up and waited for him to come to her, even if it meant waiting for him to try and date Weiss. The Ice Queen of Beacon and a part of Team RWBY. Pyrrha was hurt, _is_ hurt, but she doesn't want Jaune to live his life the way he doesn't want to. So she tells him to go after her and be honest.

She doesn't practice what she preaches.

It's that gut feeling you have when you first meet someone that tells you how your life will be affected by them. For some odd reason, the future she felt had been cut short and jagged, almost as if life had been ripped from her. Should she believe it so soon? No. No, she won't because she shouldn't have to worry about the shortening of her life—the melting of her _candlestick_.

Pyrrha believes in destiny. She's believed in it since she was a little girl. Destiny is something you can't change no matter how hard you push and pull on your actions; you just can _never_ change it.

So maybe it was destiny that brought Pyrrha to Beacon, to earn her grades and fight through the Vytal Tournament only to kill that girl— _Penny Polendina_ —and end up here.

Here. On the top floor of the tower where Cinder is pointing her bow at her, an arrow being notched into place at her chest. She sits up to stare into Cinder's amber eyes full of victory and curiosity.

"Do you believe in destiny?" Pyrrha says.

Cinder frowns and narrows her eyes. "Yes,"

The arrow _hurt_. It wasn't supposed to hurt. Is this what normal people or Faunus go through everyday because they never activated their Auras to fight? The blaring sirens in her head begging her to escape while she still has the chance while her chest and foot throbs in agony. Pyrrha never felt this before.

Her mind strikes back to her father and his conversations with her. _"You can't control how much wax makes up your candlestick, but you_ can _control how you spend your years. I love you, sweetheart."_

This is it. Maybe her candlestick hadn't melted out already, but Cinder Fall took away the rest by blowing out her flame. Ironic, really. A Maiden with a love for her fire-like Semblance smothering a flame.

Denial. That's what it is. Pyrrha's denying that her time is up and her destiny is to die by the Fall Maiden's hands. She has to let go.

Gasping for air, Pyrrha brings a hand to her chest as the burning sensation spreads through her chest and foot. A sudden realization strikes through her mind: Cinder is burning her from the inside out. She's being _incinerated_ because her destiny calls for it.

Pyrrha closes her eyes as a final breath is sucked in. _I'll miss you, Jaune. I'll miss Nora, Ren, Ruby, Blake, Yang, and Weiss. I'll see you on the other side._

Her destiny is fulfilled. Her candlestick is finally melted.

Her body's ashes float away.

———


End file.
